Error-correcting codes (ECC) are often used in communications and storage applications to protect the data against detection/reading errors. Although there are many types of ECC, most of them work better if, as part of their decoding an indication of the level of reliability of the decoding is provided instead of simply a binary decoding decision. In some case, it is possible to compute an indication of decoding reliability based on the system model. However in other cases, the system model is too complicated to allow such computation being performed at all or at least in an efficient manner.